Holocene Deposits of Saharan Rock Shelters: The Case of Takarkori and Other Sites from the Tadrart Acacus Mountains (Southwest Libya)

The excavation at Takarkori rock shelter is part of a long-term study of Holocene cultural dynamics in southwest Libya begun in the early 1990s. With a rich Holocene occupation, the area is one of the key spots for reconstruction of human occupation of the last 10,000 years. In this region, similar to the case in the rest of the Sahara, most of the data come from surface investigations at open-air sites, while excavated caves and rock shelters provide just a few. Although less exposed than open-air sites, Holocene archaeological deposits in Saharan caves and rock shelters are characterized by a fairly dynamic nature. Loose sediments, coupled with variability of human occupations and magnitude of natural agents, determine multiple alterations to the archaeological deposits in sheltered sites. In this paper, we present the nature and meaning of the archaeological deposits at Takarkori rock shelter, where a relatively large area has been recently excavated, showing a stratigraphic sequence extending from c. 9,000 to 4,200 BP, unevenly represented by several occupation pulses. In order to sharpen understanding of the development of human occupation at this site, specific procedures for the study and recording of the archaeological deposit have been developed, along with a program of extensive radiocarbon dating. Data from the Takarkori sequence ultimately will be integrated with available published stratigraphies from the Acacus Mountains, with the aim of reviewing the results from past excavations.     

History and Ideology of an Akan Centre: The Cosmological Topography of Wiawso

This article documents in a specific setting, the Sefwi variant of the Akan civilization of West Africa, the complex interplay between history and ideology in the establishment of settlements’ hegemony. The text scrutinizes sources on specific historical circumstances concerning the transformation of Wiawso, the town chosen for this exercise of cosmological topography, over the last three centuries. The demographic, social, ritual and urban dynamics are discussed with reference to the semantics of the spatial dimension of Akan settlements’ hegemonic ambitions. The focus on the interplay between history and ideology elucidates two issues. First, the importance of strategic and historically‐specific evocation and display of objects, sites and narratives claiming reference to the past, in generating and mobilizing structures of signification sustaining Wiawso’s recognized prominence. Second, the persistence over time of certain Akan ideological features concerning principally what the past entails and the standards for evaluating settlements’ success in centralization.     

A new calibration of the XRD technique for the study of archaeological burned human remains

A new calibration of human bones as a function of programmed temperature (200–1000 °C) and time (0, 18 and 60 min) is presented and discussed in order to investigate the issues related to the study of cremated bone remains by using the powder X-ray diffraction approach. The experimental results confirm the growth of hydroxylapatite crystallites as a function of the applied temperature, with a sigmoid behaviour that has been parameterized to the experimental data points. Particularly, it was observed that the thermal treatments for 60 min anticipate of about 100 °C the effects that are otherwise observed after the treatments for 0 min. The developed procedure was subsequently applied to cremated remains of various archaeological sites of Spain and supplied precise information not only about the temperature reached during the funerary rites, but also on the presumed duration for the cremation.     

Earthquakes and Tie-Rods: Assessment,Design, and Ductility Issues

The effectiveness of tie-rods is widely stressed in past earthquakes and they are still used today as reinforcement intervention, given that their use is a low-invasive and low-expensive technique. However, the earthquake design of these devices is not so simple since the main feature of a tie-rod derives from its ductility and that should be preserved as was done in the past. In this article, some considerations about static and seismic design of tie-rods are made, highlighting the main failure modes of the system. To assess seismic vulnerability of I-mode mechanism, displacement-based methods are usually used, requiring high elongation capability of the tie-rods. For this reason, an experimental campaign was carried out to define clearly the maximum elongation of tie-rods and to investigate the influence of bar length on ductility. The results have shown a good displacement capacity that decreases with the increase of steel strength. A simplified formulation, obtained from nonlinear kinematic analysis, is derived to evaluate quickly the seismic vulnerability of I-mode mechanism with tie-rods and to design this common retrofitting intervention in existing buildings.     

The Fascist racial turn: the view from the Italian-American community in the United States

ABSTRACT

This article examines Italian-Americans’ reaction to the Fascist embrace of anti-Semitism in 1938, primarily by means of a perusal of the Italian-language press in the U.S. It argues that the newcomers and their offspring usually failed to distance themselves from the regime’s racial turn because of pre-existing rivalries and resentment towards U.S. Jews. It also holds that, although Italian-Americans hardly subscribed to the Fascist ideology, which cannot be confined to anti-Jewish theories only, the notion that the Italian people were a race of their own helped the immigrants and their descendants strengthen a sense of ethnic identity based on their common national extraction and, thus, further allowed for the penetration of anti-Semitic propaganda into the Little Italies.     

Straight subjectivities in homonormative spaces: moving towards a new, ‘dynamic’ heteronormativity?

Although scholars have explored geographies of heterosexuality for a relatively long time, experiences of heterosexual subjects have been under-researched. Contributing to the discussions around how homo/straight spaces are negotiated, this study analyses how heterosexuals experience and define both homonormative and heteronormative spaces in Seattle. Through a series of interviews and focus groups with self-identified heterosexuals, I explore how these subjects interact with spaces that they recognize as being either straight or gay, and how they negotiate their own identities in relation to those spaces. I also describe how, while refusing to reject heterosexuality, the vast majority of participants expressed discomfort at being defined as someone with a fixed, stable sexual identity, and how they assumed gayness to be non-transgressive and fixed. The results show a paradoxical, complex picture, in which gayness is described as stable and normative, and heterosexuality is depicted as fluid and dynamic. The study illustrates an instance in which homo/straight binaries still shape people’s imagination, while also offering an example of the messy interaction between homonormativity and heteronormativity. What is also suggested is that, experiencing homonormative spaces and performing ‘dynamic’ identities, the respondents renegotiate what being heterosexual means for them reinforcing, however, heterosexual dominance through the definition of a new ‘dynamic’ heteronormativity.     

Santa Maria di Collemaggio Church (L’Aquila,Italy): Historical Reconstruction by Non-Destructive Testing Techniques

The main goal of this work was the non-destructive testing (NDT) of an ancient fresco (15th century) preserved in the Santa Maria di Collemaggio Church (L’Aquila, Italy) and damaged after the 2009 earthquake. Active infrared thermography (IRT), near-infrared (NIR) reflectography and ultraviolet imaging (UV) were used. In addition, the state of the fresco prior to the earthquake was analyzed by electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI), digital speckle correlation (DSC), raking light, tap, and chemical NDT techniques. The use of these techniques was important for the monitoring of new damages and for a comparison between the results over the years. Square heating thermography (SHT) data were processed using principal component thermography (PCT) and pulsed phase thermography (PPT) algorithms, in order to improve the defects’ signature and to reduce the impact of non-uniform heating and emissivity variations due to the painting’s pigments. A multi-analysis approach, segmentation operators and a specific data correlation method emphasize the overall study of the fresco. Furthermore, the facade and the high altar area were inspected by passive thermography and ground-penetrating radar (GPR), respectively. In the present case, the combined use of NDT techniques was useful to fill in the gaps in the construction history of the building.